Return from Haiti
by 89HighHopes
Summary: Flashforward 3 months after the events of the season finale. What happens when Mindy returns to New York? Rated T to be safe.
1. Danny's Office

It turns out that Dr. Jeremy Reed was the winner of the Mindy Pool. Mindy had survived a whole three months and one week in Haiti (two weeks longer than Jeremy's guess) before finally conceding to defeat and admitting to herself that she couldn't take it any longer. The funny thing is that she broke up with Casey within one week of arriving, she just didn't want to prove everyone right by returning so quickly after she left.

And what was the cause of Mindy and Casey's break up? The second time his penis knocked off her glasses, she played it off as a hilarious situation to stop herself getting pissed off. The fifth time he ruffled her newly short hair, she gently steered his arms away and explained that it made her feel like a little boy and would he stop it please. But when she walked into the tent and caught him using her toothbrush, that was the final straw.

"Casey what the hell?! "

"Hey babe…Sorry I couldn't find mine. It's ok, right?"

Mindy must have spent a full half hour yelling why it was not ok and was it humanly possible to find someone as annoying as him and how she desperately needed some space. When he started to quote a bible verse she shoved all her things in the pink rucksack she had brought with her and stormed out to find the nearest hotel. Casey, surprisingly, never went after her and a couple of weeks later Mindy saw a picture of him with a gorgeous long haired girl on his facebook page.

So Mindy spent as long as she could volunteering at the local hospital, trying to pass as much time as possible, all the while thinking of the people she left behind in New York. In particular, reliving a moment that had happened on the break-room couch til she had exhausted every possible detail. Growly voice that had come out of his gorgeous mouth and deep brown eyes looking at her like he wanted to say something (or _do_ something) but nothing happened. But my God, how she wanted something to happen.

Walking back into Schullman and Associates was easier than she thought it would be. Seeing Betsy's gaping mouth, looking at Mindy like Christmas had come early and getting a rib crushing 30 second hug from Morgan (Mindy could hear him counting under his breath) made her feel at home again. Jeremy had literally jumped for joy with his fist in the air and collected his $52, acting like it was the largest sum of money he had seen in his life. Noticing that Danny had his office door closed, Mindy casually mentioned him to Betsy.

"So is Danny in with a patient?"

"No, he's just by himself."

"Oh. Probably on the phone to Christina."

"Christina? No they broke up ages ago…like a couple of days after you left." Betsy used her hand to shield her mouth and said with a stage whisper "I thought he would take his pants off and cry like last time but he didn't."

And there it was. That glimmer of hope, the possibility that something non platonic could actually happen between them now there wasn't anybody holding them back.

Mindy knocked on his door, taking a couple of deep breaths before opening it. Danny was sitting behind his desk; his jaw went slack at the sight of her and he managed a croaky "Hey."

Mindy, feeling like Danny would be suspicious if she was not her usual chirpy self, greeted him and proceeded to tell him about all the volunteering she had done...about that hot yet creepy Haitian guy she passed every day to the hospital, the lack of clothing stores and how she survived with one tube of lip gloss throughout the whole three months because she didn't know whether people would judge her if she used different colours everyday. Even though, ofcourse, he had never asked.

Danny got up from his desk and slowly walked nearer to her - she had been leaning against the door and for some reason couldn't bring herself to move any closer.

"You grew your hair." He finally managed to say after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"Yeah, I guess you could classify it as a bob now. I was trying to go for Keira Knightley but I think it's ended up looking a bit more Velma Kelly."

"I don't know what those things are."

"Right." How did he look even more gorgeous than the last time she saw him? Mindy had always noticed how handsome he was, she just never entertained the idea that she would want him in that way. Mindy was really hoping he would say something about their last encounter but the longer she spent the more and more unlikely it seemed that it was going to come up.

She took two steps tentatively towards him, marvelling at her own courage at what she was about to do.

"Hey. Danny?"

"Yeah?" It was barely a whisper. She was standing so close she could almost feel his breath on her face and his eyes were boring into her. She could tell he was breathing faster than normal.

Then with one swift, yet not rushed, move she leaned up and kissed him chastely on the corner of his mouth. Her eyes fluttered open as she leaned back, wondering if she could gauge his response through his face. She couldn't. He just stared at her, eyes darting from one side of her face to the other. Shit, she had clearly got her signals mixed up. But before she could turn away and walk to her office (pretending like that last 5 seconds did not happen), Danny leaned in towards her, kissing her more firmly.

Anyone who looked at Danny's face could tell he was a good kisser, but my God, when it was happening she could barely keep herself standing, her knees were so weak. His soft lips were all over hers and he ran his tongue around the inside of her bottom lip, drawing a line around them. It felt so clichéd, but Mindy couldn't stop herself moaning into his mouth, pulling him closer by his shirt and running her fingers through his hair. He responded by backing her up against his door making sure he had as much of his body on hers as possible, and pinning her arms on either side of her head. God, he drove her wild.

There was a knocking and they could hear Betsy's voice through the other side of the door.

"Um. Dr. Castellano?"

Danny pulled away panting with a massive grin on his face, cupping his hands around Mindy's face and giving soft small kisses all around it, almost like he couldn't bear to be apart for those seconds. Mindy responded by kissing his neck and playfully nibbling on his earlobe. He moaned.

"Betsy, I'm kinda in the middle of something." Pulling Mindy's face away from his neck, he brushed her hair from her eyes and kissed her again, hard.

"Your girlfriend is here."

The shock of hearing it made Mindy suddenly pull her head back and it slammed against the door.

"Ouch."


	2. The Apartment

_Thanks so much for all the great reviews! Love to you all!_

"Woah. WHAT." Mindy pushed Danny away from her.

"I-"

"What is going on? You have a-" then realising Betsy was probably listening ear pressed against the door, she might even already be beckoning Morgan and Tamra to eavesdrop with her, Mindy dropped her voice and whispered angrily "You have a girlfriend?! Did you just make me an adulterer Danny?! "

"What?" He said with a little laugh at her overreaction. "No, just relax, let me-"

"Don't you 'just relax' me with that stupid lopsided smile. God, I hate you so much!" She shouted, forgetting that the whole floor was probably trying to overhear what was going on. This was confirmed when she wrenched open the door to find her entire cohort of staff suddenly pretending that they were standing next to Danny's door for any other reason but to listen in. Beverly had somehow managed to find popcorn.

Grabbing her coat and purse from Betsy's desk she pushed past everyone and briskly walked towards the exit, leaving Danny with a floored expression leaning against his desk.

"It was nice seeing everybody. I will officially start work on Monday. Maybe Tuesday. Probably Tuesday." Mindy said in her best imitation of some who was cool, calm and collected.

Mindy had managed to convince her landlord to only temporarily rent out her apartment when she left, the new tenants of which were immediately kicked out when Mindy presented him with a new canary as a 'just because' gift. Even as Mindy huddled on her sofa with her with her floral pajamas and the latest episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, she could not shake the thought of that jerk Danny Castellano off her brain. She heard a knock on her door. Looking at the time and thinking that the Chinese place had really speeded up their service since she last used them she padded towards the door, picking up her wallet from the kitchen counter on the way there.

Opening the door she found Danny leaning against the frame.

"Oh. You're not the Chinese food delivery man."

Danny couldn't suppress a grin. "Can I come in?"

"I dunno man, do what you want. I don't care. It's a free country." She looked down and scratched the back of her head. Perhaps a few too many words to maintain her nonchalance.

"Ok." Danny stepped into her apartment, taking off his jacket.

"What are you doing?" She asked incredulously.

"Just getting comfortable. It's still a free country right?" He brushed past her slightly on the way to her couch. Mindy just gaped, unable to think of a snarky reply.

"What do you want Danny?" She sat on the other side of the couch, as far away from him as possible.

"You just left without letting me explain."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

"It's not that simple."

"You kissed me and you have a girlfriend Danny."

"Oh please. Like you're a complete saint."

"I've never cheated on anybody!" Then a pause. "Technically!"

"No. You just go around having couch moments with every guy in New York."

Mindy gave Danny a death stare. She got off the couch, heading towards her kitchen island and making as much distance between them as possible.

"Wait, hold on." Danny got up to chase after her. He grabbed her arm and spun her round. "I'm sorry."

"Stop standing so close to me. And stop looking at me like that!"

"Like what?" He asked with half a crooked smile.

"You can't just say mean stuff and think you can get away with it by…using your face." She gestured towards him wildly.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about what I said and I'm sorry I never told you about the girlfriend. But you took me by surprise." He took a step closer to her, his chest was almost brushing hers. He looked firmly into her eyes, and moved his hold on her forearm, finger tips moving downwards so his hand could interlock with hers. His eyes wandered down to her lips.

"Don't even think about kissing me Danny Castellano." Mindy avoided his stare, trying really hard not to look at his parted mouth but his gaze stayed firm.

"I won't." His mouth was still open and his voice came out in a signature low growl. "Mindy Lahiri."

"Good. Cos I don't want you to." She whispered, though she literally wanted nothing more in that moment. "I don't like you."

"Then why are you squeezing my hand?"

Infuriating.


	3. The Restaurant

"Tamra, I need a set of bloods from Ms. Lieberman please. She's in my room."

"Min-dy's bayack and I'm gonna draw some bloo-woah-ood!" Good God, why did Tamra have to respond to every one of her orders in song. So catchy.

Mindy had been on edge ever since she got into work, she had been thinking about her last encounter with Danny a couple of days ago. It ended with her unceremoniously shooing him out of her apartment shouting that there had been no hand squeezing, and the last hand she would ever want to squeeze was his.

"Oh. My. God." Morgan dropped the thermometer he was holding.

A big sigh. "What is it Morgan?"

"Dr. Castellano is here. And that's his girlfriend!"

"Oh, he's still with his girlfriend? That's cool." Mindy watched as Danny walked in with a tall leggy blonde woman.

"Oh hey. I didn't think you guys had a chance to meet last week. Mindy, this is my girlfriend Sarah. Sarah, this is Mindy." Danny had a weird smirk on his face as he introduced her.

"Oh wow. I love your dress, it's gorgeous." And she meant it, Mindy never lied about a good fashion choice.

"Thank you." Damn, why did she have to have such a pretty smile. Eyes wandering she noticed Danny had been staring at her with eyes narrowed, he immediately turned away when she caught his eye.

"Yeah, I wore something similar to a date I had with a guy yesterday."

"You're seeing someone already?! You've been in New York for 4 days!" Danny had raised his voice. Noticing this, he cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. "I mean, good for you. For getting back on the wagon…after Casey. That's good." He was baring a little too much teeth in his smile.

"Yes, Danny. I too, am seeing someone. We're actually going to go to dinner at that new place that's opened a couple of blocks from here."

"Oh my God, us too!" Sarah exclaimed. "The one with the green sign?"

"Y-Yes."

"Excellent! Let's make it a double date!"

"That…would be great! Gosh I am so excited. Aren't you Danny?"

"Its gonna…it's gonna be good."

Mindy backed away with a polite wave goodbye, and dragged Tamra towards her office.

"Listen, Tamra. I need you to convince one of your hot black friends to pretend to be my date for tonight."

* * *

"Oh God, what am I doing. What am I doing here." She was pacing in the bathroom, really regretting agreeing to dinner. So far, Mindy had been doing a terrible job remembering the name of her date (Darren not Darnell) and the small talk had been excruciatingly awkward.

Pushing her way out of the bathroom, she bumped into Danny who was heading towards the men's room.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"So…Sarah seems nice."

Danny looked behind him to their table. Sarah was playing on her phone, Darren was staring off in the distance looking bored.

"Thanks, so does Darren."

"It's Darnell."

"I'm pretty sure it's…never mind." Danny leaned against a Greek-style pillar that was next to him and wiped his brow. "We should talk." Mindy gave him quizzical look, knowing full well why he wanted to talk.

"Yeah, man. Lay it out there. What's up?"

"What's up? What's up is I just can't believe you're happy to just…go out with these dicks."

"What? Darnell's not a dick."

"He just asked me if I was part of the mafia!"

"Well are you? It's a legit question, Danny."

"Listen. I am bad at telling people how I feel. But I think you know-" his voice had dropped incase they were being overheard "how I feel about you."

"Erm…you have literally told me nothing about how you feel about me Danny."

"I bought you that coffee the day before you left for Haiti. If that isn't a gigantic gesture I don't know what is."

"Danny, buying coffee for a co-worker doesn't mean anything you weird caveman! Just tell me how you feel!" Her voice was high pitched and loud and she looked at him expectantly.

"I…I…You're very annoying!"

"Yeah. That much I do know." As she shoved past him to go re-join Darren.


	4. The Notebook

After their last encounter, Danny and Mindy had exchanged nothing but polite small talk during two emergency caesarean sections that they had done together.

"Dr. L. It has been two weeks since you spoke to Dr. C." Mindy looked up from her patient chart to see Morgan, chin resting on his interlocked fingers as he leaned on the arm-rest of the three seater couch.

"I know. Have you been counting?" Mindy asked with a suspicious smile.

"Well. I've been logging your day to day activities with Dr. C in this notebook," Morgan pulled out a small pink flowery notebook from somewhere in his back pocket that had Mindy and Danny's faces (printed off from the Schullman and Associates website) shoddily glued onto it. "I've been really bored during patients and Bets always pretends to be computering when I need to be entertained."

Mindy's mouth dropped and moved wordlessly but Morgan paid no attention.

"So let's see," Morgan opened the book and rifled through several pages. "September 9th 2013, morning. Dr. L sees Dr. C with new girlfriend Sarah. Dr. L pretends she isn't jealous of Sarah and makes up a boyfriend to make her look cool in front of Dr. C. Dr. C looks at Dr. L disbelievingly."

Mindy just stared at him, mouth still open.

"What? I used disbelievingly wrong? I knew a 5-syllable word was out of my depth!"

"Morgan! How long have you been doing this?! And he totally bought the boyfriend thing!"

"Since Christmas probably. And even Betsy didn't buy it. And she thinks chameleons are real animals so we all know how easy it is to fool her."

"What?" For once in her life, Mindy was lost for words. "Why?! Why have you been doing this?!"

"Erm, isn't it obvious? I'm a total Dandy fan. I've been shipping you two for ages and wanted to map out the story arc so I didn't miss anything. I used to ship you and me but then it was pretty clear that you were more into me than I was into you….so I decided to cut you loose."

"No-one is shipping me with anybody because there is nothing to ship!" Mindy said angrily and grabbed the notebook off his hands.

"Are we talking about ships? Anyone see Deadliest Catch yesterday?" Danny sauntered in, coffee and paper in hand.

Mindy shoved the notebook under her and sat on top of it to stop Danny seeing it.

"Heyyyy." Mindy and Morgan said in unison, both turning to face Danny.

"Am I interrupting something?" Danny stopped still, clearly feeling something wasn't right.

"No, Dr. C. Not at all. Infact, I've just remembered that I told Shauna that I would help her tidy some files."

"Shauna left seven months ago, Morgan."

"Yes… but she still likes to give me orders to feel included." Morgan departed the doctor's lounge with a cheery wave and a very pronounced eyebrow raise that was aimed at Mindy.

Danny's eyes wandered over to Mindy, who was curled up on the couch, trying to make sure the notebook wasn't visible.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Danny chose the seat furthest away from her and sat down with a heavy sigh.

"Long day?"

"Mmm." Danny opened his paper. Then after a pause but not looking up from his paper "How was yours?"

"Yeah, fine." Mindy started twirling her hair with her fingers. "Ran into the DesLauriers in the elevator."

Danny's head jerked up suddenly. "And?"

"And nothing. Spent the whole elevator ride in silence. Don't you hate that? When you really want to say something to someone but you can't so you just sit in silence til you don't have to be with them anymore?" Mindy asked pointedly.

Danny looked back down at his paper and replied with another "Mmm."

Since the conversation wasn't going anywhere and she had finished writing in her patient's chart, Mindy got up slightly to shove the notebook into her back pocket (under the pretence of adjusting her scrubs, not that Danny would have noticed anyway), and walked out the doctor's lounge with a "Seeya later."

* * *

Finding an empty patient observation room, Mindy sat down on the cold surgical bed and immediately got out Morgan's notebook. Turning to a random page near the beginning, she read:

_'December 11__th__ 2012, evening. Dr. L is very emotional during her Christmas speech, she is clearly finding it very difficult to get over me. Turns out Dr. C didn't leave the Christmas party afterall and he takes over from Dr. L because he doesn't like to see her crying. A gorgeous red headed woman comes in. Dr. C is pissed off when she calls Dr. L mean things. He spends ten minutes outside her bedroom listening at the door before going in.'_

Mindy paused, brow furrowed. Then looking a few pages onwards:

_'February 19__th__ 2013, evening. Dr. C made fun of Dr. L's awesome puppet (Erica Everywoman) and he feels bad about it, so now he's helping to train her for her talkshow appearance. I don't know which talkshow it is, but I hope that it's Ellen_. _Dr. C stays 5 hours past his shift to help her rehearse and to go with her to the talkshow so she will have company.'_

"He came because he didn't want me to embarrass the clinic." Mindy said under her breath.

_'March 19__th__ 2013, very very early morning. I may have texted Dr. L after her birthday dinner because I was concerned about Dr. C's ability to make children after he fell in a really deep hole. Dr. C is surprised when Dr. L rushes in. He can't stop staring at her when she strokes his face.'_

_ 'March 26__th__ 2013, morning. Dr. C is really angry at his friend for going on a date with Dr. L. A little too angry, if you ask me. Dr. L convinces Dr. C to go talk to his friend in Long Island. I hoped my sea legs wouldn't make an appearance but they did. And it was bad. I vomited a total of 37 times. Dr. C is really nervous but Dr. L won't take no for an answer. Dr. C keeps on looking at Dr. L's hand on the ferry like he wants to hold it.'_

Mindy was now thoroughly confused.

_'April 2__nd__ 2013, afternoon. Dr. C puts steristrips on Dr.L's cuts which she only got because she didn't listen to my advice about not feeding the inmates. They got her good. Dr. L is pissed off about her hair but Dr. C is just glad to have a reason to touch her face.'_

_ 'April 4__th__ 2013, evening. Dr. C is really pissed off (not sure why, I did show him the wetwipe). He shouts at Dr. L outside his apartment then kicks a lamppost when she has walked off. He now looks really sad :-('_

Mindy flicked through to one of the last entries.

_'May 17__th__ 2013, morning. Dr. C jokingly asks Dr. L if she still wants to go to Haiti. Dr. L thinks he's asking because he thinks she won't be able to make it. Later, Dr. C buys her a coffee and keeps opening his mouth like he wants to say something to Dr. L, then closing it again like he doesn't want to say it. Dr. C reaches out to hold her hand but pretends that he was reaching for something else when Pastor C. walks into the office.'_

Mindy snapped the notebook shut.

"Holy crap."


	5. The Apartment v2

"Gwen. Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen. GWEN! Call me back!" Mindy was awake at 3 in the morning, unable to rid herself of her thoughts after reading Morgan's notebook. It was like every moment she had shared with Danny Castellano had been portrayed in a whole new light. Oh my god, Danny Castellano had totally liked her. It was so obvious now. She needed to talk to him. Face to face.

Jumping out of the taxi, Mindy noticed the door to Danny's apartment block has been propped open. Thanking her lucky stars and making a mental note to tell Danny about the awful security, she raced upstairs and knocked on the door loudly.

Pausing to listen if she could hear anyone stirring within the apartment, she resumed her rapid knocking for a further minute until the door sprang open with a very grumpy Danny looking at her from the other side.

Tousled hair and bleary eyed, he heaved a heavy sigh and muttered "It's 3:30 in the morning, Mindy."

"Sorry. Did I wake you?" Mindy really hadn't thought this through and she suddenly realized this was a very bad idea. But almost worth it to get that sneak peak of Danny Castellano's pajamas. God, they were cute. How did he manage to look so good in that old raggedy t shirt?!

"3:30." Danny repeated and made a move to close the door. Mindy threw her arm out to block it.

"Hey man! That is very rude." Having a slight feeling of deja vu from that time on the couch, Mindy subconsciously pushed her glasses further up her face. Danny must have felt it too because his eyes were drawn to her hair, then he watched the movement of her glasses, his eyes finally resting on hers for a few seconds. Realizing that he was probably staring, he cleared his throat and changed the direction of his gaze to the floor.

"What is it Mindy?"

Mindy opened her mouth (with no idea of what she was about to say), but was interrupted by-

"Danny? Who's at the door?" Sarah walked in, wearing what a very old Rolling Stones t-shirt with what looked like nothing underneath. Damn, her legs were long. Danny turned around to watch her approach then turned back to Mindy with an almost guilty look on his face. Mindy's face fell, but she quickly rearranged it into a smile and a "Hey."

"Oh hi Mindy. What's wrong? Is there an emergency at the hospital?"

Thank you Sarah.

"Yes!" Mindy said with a little too much enthusiasm. "There was a difficult emergency operation that we needed Danny for but it turns out that I just did it on my own." Mindy couldn't help but give herself a mental pat on the back for single-handedly saving that mother and baby in her fake story.

"So I just came to…personally deliver the message to Danny that we don't need him anymore. You can ignore that page."

"I didn't get a page."

"Exactly! We figured your pager wasn't working when you didn't answer the first one so I said I would come over here to tell you."

"Wait, so my pager isn't working?"

"Yeah, you should probably see someone about that. Anyway, got to go. See ya!" Mindy power walked down the corridor, almost smacking herself on the forehead for the complete awkwardness of the past 30 seconds. She heard the door shut behind her and slowed down her walk. Precarious situation, but she managed to get out of it relatively unscathed.

"Hey. Hey!" Turning round, she saw Danny had closed the door between him and Sarah, leaving him outside his apartment.

Walking towards her barefoot, he stopped a couple of meters away.

"Is everything ok?" He wasn't angry anymore, his face had a slight curious smile on it.

"Yeah, fine. Sorry to wake you, it's just I didn't want you to hear about the emergency and come into the hospital when you didn't-"

"My pager is working. I got one ten minutes ago, false alarm for Mrs. Moretti." Danny looked into her eyes, clearly trying to catch any giveaways that she had lied.

Oh crap. Mindy had been caught in a lie quite a few times before in her life, and she never learned. She was not going to embarrass herself by owning up.

"Hmm? Oh, must have been a glitch. Or maybe the nurse paged someone else." Getting more confident , Mindy said "Y'know, infact, I saw her drink something out of a flask a few hours ago at the hospital. Might have one of those drinking problems. But who am I to judge? Alcohol addiction is a disease that affects many. Lots of people have addictive personalities. I have an addiction to pizza and buying shoes, for instance. Anyway, thanks for the chat, seeya Danny." Why did she always talk fast and ramble when she was nervous? Mindy turned around in an attempt to walk as far away as possible before Danny could say anything.

"Mindy?"

Mindy stopped and turned around again to face him. "Yeah?"

He had a look on his face that she could not discern. Those few seconds felt like forever, she just wished he would say something.

"Nothing. See you at the office."


	6. Mindy's Office

"Just the most embarrassing moment of my life. The most. And you know how embarrassing my life is. In general, I mean."

"Maybe he'll forget all about it and you can pretend it never happened." Gwen was absent-mindedly texting on her phone whilst Mindy lay on her office floor, staring at the ceiling.

"Hmm. Yeah. Maybe he bought the whole drunk-nurse-pager thing. Y'know, he can be pretty dumb sometimes."

"Mmmm."

"I just can't believe no one told me he liked me."

Gwen snorted. "I mean, we all thought it was kinda obvious. How could you not know?"

"Well I'm wondering if he knew himself. Remember that time I went to Santa Fe?"

"Rehab, turbulence, hand holding?"

"Yes! I did wonder then…but then I thought how could he? I annoy him so much."

"Understandably."

Mindy elbowed her playfully then sighed.

"Do you think he still likes me Gwen?"

"Erm…didn't you guys make out literally meters away from here?"

"And then I pretty much told him that I would never like him."

"Danny's not the type of guy to play games. If you like him, you have to tell him that you like him. None of this playing around stuff. I think he would totally leave Sarah if you told him."

Mindy sat up. "I wouldn't want to be the reason why he breaks up with Sarah! God, it's almost like the whole Josh scenario all over again. I can't be the other woman again, Gwen, I just can't. I'm already running low on karmic points."

Gwen smiled at how seriously Mindy said her last statement.

"Why don't you-" but Gwen was interrupted by a loud rapid knocking followed by Danny bursting into her office with a patient file in his hand.

"Hey are you almost done with…lunch." Danny's eyes dropped to Mindy and Gwen at that last word and he could supress a smile.

"Danny! You can't just barge in straight after knocking! Then what the hell is the point of knocking!" Mindy shouted, possibly harsher than she would have shouted normally.

"Sorry. Why are you on the floor? Someone ate the last cookie again?"

"Danny, you know that cookie jokes are off limits if I am having floor time!"

Danny chuckled. "Hi Gwen, how are ya?"

"Is there something you wanted Castellamo?" Mindy asked shortly before Gwen could reply.

"I have to go pick up Riley from school anyway. Call me later?" Mindy permitted Gwen to give a swift kiss on her forehead before she departed.

There was a few seconds of silence whilst Mindy stayed on the floor and Danny hovered around her.

"Well?!" Mindy asked sharply. "Or did you just come to rattle at me?"

To her surprise, Danny took a step closer to her and lay down on the floor beside her.

"Didn't get much sleep last night either, huh?"

Mindy put on her best defensive tone. "Well I didn't WANT to come over. But someone had to tell you about the pager thing. And no one else wanted to enter your creepy apartment block."

"I checked with the nurses and no one paged me last night. Also, you weren't even working."

Oh crap. Mindy stayed silent, the cogs in her brain whirring furiously as she tried to think of an excuse.

"Anyway. I just came in because I need you to sign this paperwork." Danny handed the file across to her and Mindy pulled a pen out of her breast pocket, grateful for an excuse to move on from the conversation topic. She handed the file back to him, expecting him to leave. Instead, he just lay next to her for a couple of minutes, making Mindy increasingly uncomfortable.

"So Sarah thinks that she should be concerned about us. Should she be?" He turned to face her, those dark brown eyes as piercing as ever. Mindy's eyes unwillingly met his then she forced her head to snap back towards the ceiling.

In the most casual tone she could muster, Mindy replied "I don't know, should she be?"

"I asked first."

"Well I don't know, she's _your_ girlfriend man. I don't know what goes on in your relationship."

Danny heaved a heavy sigh. "Ok." Then propping himself up on his elbows, he shifted himself to get up.

"No! Wait!" Mindy grabbed a fistful of his wrinkly cotton shirt to stop him getting up, and he clumsily spun and fell on top of her.

"Ow! You're elbowing my boob! My boob, Danny!"

Danny burst out laughing and Mindy couldn't help but laugh along with him. His face was inches away from hers and that old familiar nervousness crept in again.

Thinking about what Gwen had said about playing games moments earlier, Mindy shyly said "Yes" then bit her lip.

"What?"

"Yes. Yes, I think she should be concerned."

There was that crooked smile again.


End file.
